


In the Woods Somewhere

by CorvidFightClub



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, McHanzo - Freeform, Scars, Werewolf AU, done for Rising Moon zine, happy wereboofs, mentions of abuse, mentions of agoraphobia, mentions of collars, mentions of noncon drug use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-03
Updated: 2019-12-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 20:13:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21654550
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CorvidFightClub/pseuds/CorvidFightClub
Summary: On a farm hidden in the mountains, a rescued Hanzo relearns there is more to being a werewolf than the fighting ring.[Done for the Rising Moon McHanzo zine]
Relationships: Ana Amari/Reinhardt Wilhelm, Jesse McCree/Hanzo Shimada
Comments: 9
Kudos: 206





	In the Woods Somewhere

**Author's Note:**

> This is a slice of a much longer fic. I'm an idiot and didn't read the word count restrictions until I was past it. Anyways, have this for now. Longer fic up eventually.

“C’mon outside.” McCree’s fingers were on his arm, scruffy face nuzzling Hanzo’s neck reassuringly. “Ain’t nothin’ gonna happen. We’re the biggest, baddest things out here.”

Hanzo chuckled, “Asides from Reinhardt-san, I would agree.”

“And he’s even on our side,” Jesse said, nudging Hanzo closer to the back door with his body, then out onto the porch. The night air was cool, smelling faintly of autumn; frost, wet leaves, wood smoke from the stove in the living room where Ana and Reinhardt were curled together on the overstuffed couch.

Hanzo stopped, realised how close he was to the expanse of the yard, and took a step back. Not long ago, he wouldn’t even have been able to come this far. He’d grown so accustomed to small cages smelling of blood or cleaning agents. Anything else had become overwhelming, sent him back indoors, pressing himself low. Ana and Reinhardt had understood. He’d spent the better part of his manhood underground and waiting for the fighting ring, or being jostled around in the back of a truck, bound for the next arena where the rich stood on the sidelines and shouted at them like dogs.

Ana and Reinhardt had rescued him from the cages and the sand and the dark. It had been some night on an unnamed stretch of road when they had caught his handlers during transit. Quick and lethal, they had stolen him from the back of the van and spirited him here, to a little house on a mountainside overlooking a green valley. 

Jesse kissed the back of his neck, lips against the scars from the metal collar and its needles full of adrenaline and sedatives. It hadn’t taken humans long to decipher how to manipulate the change and extort those who suffered from it. Adrenaline made the teeth lengthen, the fur sprout, the back bend and contort. Sedatives pulled the strength away, made the body drowsy and harmless.

Jesse’s hands rubbed soothingly down Hanzo’s arms. “Just a little more so we can look at the moon. Then we can go back in if you want,” Jesse said.

Hanzo let himself be herded forward. If he was honest, having Jesse pressed to him lessened the anxiety of being in the open. They made it to the porch stairs just beyond the awning. The moon was heavy and full above the jagged line of trees. Hanzo closed his eyes, his face tipped upwards. He used to pray to the moon from inside his metal cage. He’d imagine her cool hands on his feverish skin, soothing him into dreamless sleep, perhaps the last gentle touch he’d ever feel.

“Pretty,” Jesse murmured. "Almost pretty as you.”

Hanzo opened his eyes to Jesse watching him. Hanzo smiled, "You said you wanted to see the moon." 

"I fibbed," Jesse said, squeezing Hanzo gently with his long arms. "I wanted to see you in it." 

Affection unfurled like fern in Hanzo's chest. It had taken so long to trust it. At first, he'd seen Jesse as a rival. Someone to brawl with until one of them was the victor. Reinhardt had been a patient buffer between them, both against Hanzo's anger and Jesse's excessive goading, until they came to a grudging truce. Ana's penchant for turning the garden hose on them when they fought was no small deterrent either.

Jesse's needling had taken on a different approach then. Carefully placed bait in the shape of stories, mostly of Jesse's past. Growing up in the New Mexico heat. His first shift as a gangly teenager during a bar fight. His subsequent time spent tied to a post as a bait dog until he began killing every attacker, then finally his handler in a moment of lapsed security.

Slowly, Hanzo told Jesse of waking in the fields behind Shimada castle, covered in mud and the blood of small animals. How Hanzo had slunk his way back to his bedroom more than once before his brother had found him out. 

“Amazing!” Genji had exclaimed. “You’ll be unstoppable, Hanzo! Just wait till fa--”

Hanzo had tackled Genji to the mats, hand over his brother’s mouth as Hanzo had watched the door to the room, listening for passing servants. “Promise me you’ll say nothing to anyone,” Hanzo had hissed.

“But--”

“Promise me!”

Genji had been puzzled but agreed. Hanzo had been willing to leave his brother in ignorance. Genji was young and hadn’t gone with father on business trips yet, hadn’t stood at father’s elbow while he placed bets at the underground fighting rings. Hadn’t seen father roar his approval as the combatants tore each other to shreds. 

Hanzo had never found what had given him away, but one morning he woke in the back of a van in a reinforced steel cage, a metal collar around his neck. The grim-faced men operating the vehicle had refused to answer him when he had called out. They had taken him to a small, grandfatherly man in his sixties named Kazuo, who dressed exclusively in baseball hats and track outfits, the fingers of his right hand adorned with large golden rings. 

"Hanzo," he had said, frowned. "Old. Not a good name for screaming in the arena." His gaze had alighted upon Hanzo's tattoos and immediately dubbed him 'dragon' instead. 

The rest Jesse had understood without Hanzo detailing the abuse, the starvation, nights spent without sleep because of the artificial chemicals pumped into him. The wretch Ana and Reinhardt had pulled from the wreckage of that van had been more feral than a rabid badger. And yet here he was, warm, fed, and adored. 

Jesse rocked gently from side to side. “Wanna go in?” he asked. 

Hanzo watched the tall grass of the backyard ripple in the breeze. The trees were dark, but it had changed, becoming the sort that gently beckoned, like a familiar bedroom.

Or perhaps he had changed. 

He pulled from Jesse’s embrace, gripped Jesse’s arm and walked down the porch steps. Hanzo paused at the bottom, waiting. All his anxieties had screamed that if he were to go any further, he would be torn to shreds by something large and nameless and unstoppable. Something against which he could never win, no matter his skill and strength. 

Nothing came. He and Jesse were alone with the trees and the moon and the small animals hiding in the waving grass. 

Heartbeat in his ears, Hanzo moved again towards the trees, Jesse in tow.

“Where we goin’, darlin’?”

“I don’t know.”

The trees loomed tall over them, creaking. Hanzo licked his upper lip nervously. He let go of Jesse long enough to shed his sweater, then the over-sized t-shirt he had borrowed from Reinhardt, jeans, shoes. Jesse watched him for a beat before pulling off his own clothing, trying to catch up and tripping on his shoe as he jogged after Hanzo into the trees. 

Hanzo dropped onto all fours, fur rippling over him, the darkness around him lightning to twilight. He shook himself, huffed, scenting the wind. A deer had wandered close to the property line in hopes of an easy meal from the garden, but had turned away long before reaching the fences. Hanzo could follow its trail if he wanted, chase it all night and eat its innards for breakfast. Or give chase and let it escape into the thicket at the last moment, white tail flashing a warning. 

Jesse pushed his russet head against Hanzo’s white shoulder, playfully nipping at his ear until Hanzo pushed him back and loped into the underbrush. It felt good to stretch his legs, his shoulders, to feel his claws dig into the earth as they ran in and out of pools of moonlight. Over stretches of rock face, under logs and branches and leaves, on and on until Hanzo pulled up next to a rotting stump, sides heaving, tongue lolling out. Jesse pushed him over and Hanzo went, pawing at Jesse’s face until Jesse flopped down next to him, head resting on Hanzo’s belly. 

“I have a den,” Jesse said. 

Hanzo craned his neck to look at him. “You do?”

Jesse nodded, golden eyes hopeful. 

Licking Jesse’s cheek, Hanzo replied, “Take me there.”


End file.
